Thursday, August 27, 2009

I was riding along, minding my business, when out of an orange colored sky something came and decided to snap the throttle cable on my scooter.AAA, hershey, learning the hard way, scooter, thingamajig
Yup, I was just starting to pull into an intersection when suddenly I was unable to go anywhere. The scooter was no longer responding to the throttle and I had just enough momentum to carry me through the intersection where I walked it into a nearby parking lot. I looked it over and discovered that apparently the throttle cable snapped somewhere underneath the scooter.

Now normally I would not have minded having to walk the scooter a little ways to get help. Especially if I had run out of gas, which have done previously a number of times. But this was a little beyond my ability fix on the spot.

So, it turns out I needed to walk the scooter home from downtown Orange, which was about 2.5 miles, since I really couldn't afford a tow truck. And, even though we have AAA for our car, we do not, however, have it for my scooter.

I realize that 2.5 miles is not that great a distance to walk, but when you are pushing a 500lb scooter, while wearing black pants and a dark blue golf shirt, and the temperature is in the upper 90's, it starts become a little daunting. Especially since there is a rather large hill between you and home. Of course the hill I speak of is the bridge over the 5 fwy on La Veta heading into Santa Ana.

Being a little dehydrated I decided to stop at the CVS on the way and get something to drink and a little snack so I don't collapse while traversing over the aforementioned hill.

Now I am a people watcher and while I was standing outside the store drinking the water and eating the thingamajig I had purchased I noticed a guy kind of wandering around near the entrance to the store and talking on his cell-phone. As I casually drink my water and eat my thingamajig I notice this guy is becoming increasingly agitated with whatever the person on the other end of the "line" is saying. To the point where he is becoming quite loud and profane on his end of the conversation. Yes, I probably could have said something to him, but seeing as he was becoming increasingly irate, and a bit animated, I decided to move on. After all I had my own problem to deal with.

From here I decided to take my time, and pace myself as I approached my biggest obstacle, which was not helped by the fact that I had a pretty good wind in my face and I was heading into the sun.

Well, the hill was not as bad I as I expected, of course that was due to me taking a breather a few times on the way up, and the gator-ade I also picked up at CVS. I coasted down the other side and made it home without further incident.

I guess the lesson learned from this one, which I have no idea how expensive it is going to be yet, is when you are thinking it might be too expensive to pay for the additional AAA coverage for your scooter, or motorcycle, it will probably save you from walking the thing home on one of the hottest days of the year.